To back track in my history since November 2011, I entered The Graffiti and Illegal Anger into two Indigenous film-video festivals. The Graffiti was accepted into one. Illegal Anger was accepted into two: Vancouver Indigenous Media Video Festival 2012, their first one was held in Vancouver and The Fourteenth Annual Native American Indian Film Festival of the Southeast was held in South Carolina. Both were held in November. The Graffiti and Illegal Anger videos won awards at the Native American Indian Film Festival of the Southeast. I have never won awards for any films and videos I made.  

The holidays are over, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas.  These holiday events happen every year and it cost money to participate in them, the only aspect I dislike about them.  I feel half and half towards them at this point. What I like about these holiday events such as Halloween is dressing up in costume and wearing make up. If I am able to attend a party and dance, it is fun.  I use to do it more so but I am not invited by people in the lower Vancouver Mainland to attend parties, especially for a Halloween party.  The weather in Vancouver rules when going out, though. Nothing like LA. Personally I think some people like me, never tire to attend parties although I will not attend two parties in a row.  While others do not care for it or possibly these type of people never were introduced to party the way I know it. Or it’s against their religion.  People dance and get into it. I do. Some of parties I attended in the United States had dancing. Sometimes parties were pure intellectual talk. I can do that. Where as I have noticed dancing if it happens, happens because of people of color, Mexican or Black people put them on, but not always. Since I have lived here the last ten years, I attended only one party in Vancouver where this happened. But this year we were invited by a woman friend for a pre-Christmas, house warming party and a Christmas dinner at her Surrey house. If I had money to afford a party, I would put on a party but I cannot due to lack of money. Christmas is a money turn off.  Only the wealthy can enjoy it the best.  The people who are low income like me cannot enjoy it totally.  Christmas is about money and commercialization.  I do not know how parents who are low income afford to buy presents for their children. To exchange gifts is positive among friends because a present can be anything.  For me it is the thought that counts.  My woman friend moved to a new place, a house in Surrey during the late fall. She lived in a basement apartment for a long time.  Her new place, the exterior and especially the interior were decorated for Christmas very beautiful.  I never viewed such a beautiful house.  I know the gaudy middle of the road of physical looks. My asethetics are very good. She provided food and drink. She was so generous and kind.  Both gatherings were fun. At the house warming party people played and sang music.  One person played the piano.  Debbie’s common law boyfriend played the guitar.  We sang and played songs. 

We had a new carpet installed in our apartment about 3 weeks ago.  The previous carpet that came with the apartment had a real bad stain. The new carpet looks great. I like it. Makes such a difference in the way a person feels towards her/his place.

Where we live is a small basement like the last one but it is a bit more smaller.  We get along with the landlord way better.  The previous landlord—I have no words to describe her, which is not positive.  She is an Afghanistan woman.  From what I have viewed on the news and from dramatic films about Afghanistan, most of the people who live there are poor.  My guess is she comes from a high income background. This is my first conflict with a person who is an immigrant from another country.  Canada considers me an immigrant but in reality considering the history of my people, First Nations people in North America, we lived here first. I am Dine’, a First Nation from North America. I originally stem from Arizona.  The Dene and Dine’ speak the same athapaskan language root. We did not create the borders. 

Last week the snow started to snow and it continues. It is cold too.  Heard it snowed more in Seattle than here.  Snow drifts slowly down this morning. It turned to rain and it is not as cold.

This week I biked with a one gear bike to the Surrey Spca cat care volunteering.  Monday night I called my partner whom I wolunteer with and asked for a ride in case it snowed too much like it did Wednesday morning, but on Monday night hardly any snow fell down.  She said yes.  The bike rode pretty good on snow and the icy parts. 

I am applying for a job, Community Services Programmer for the Surrey Arts Centre.  Shall see.  I do not find many jobs in  the arts. Mostly I have worked in my field and other art jobs all my life, but I have worked at other non related art jobs such as motel maid, waitress and book binder.  This cat care is an example of it.  I like cats and dogs, a main reason why I do it. It is not a glamorous job. 

Pretty soon to look into film video festival grants for my Indigenous Woman Filmmakers’ Conference idea and begin writing the proposals up. Mostly been researching it by talking with people about it and reading some books.

My computer is in the repair shop.  Hope it gets fixed.  What will I do without it. I use the local library computer temporarily to work on the computer but the library only allows the public an hour’s use.  Sometimes I need a whole lot more time to work on a employment application and other work.  Sometimes all day I video edit, write, fix resumes and proposals. I inquired at the Newton Senior Centre about the computer typing time, but they had none. So very disappointed was I, that I wrote a query letter to the director, a commentary asking why it was this way.   

Found out the computer’s life, board cannot be fixed.  The boards are not manufactured anymore. In the computer world, my computer was old. The repair guy said it was just the way it was: a computer that turned bad.  Aged computer. What do do? What to do?  At first when I heard this news from the repair guy, I was shocked but I got over it. The news takes awhile to sink in. I depend upon the computer so much for a lot of things which includes video editing and use on the internet. In the last two days I have been thinking about what to do.  A lot depends upon money. Shall see. One step at a time.

Do not have much money to work with.  So difficult.  Got to find a way to make money. It has got to get better.